The growth of gay retirement homes
As gay rights advance across the US, there is one group that feels it has long been neglected and isolated - the elderly. But that may now be changing, with a series of retirement housing projects opening to serve the gay community.
Before she moved house, Lucretia Kirby suffered homophobic verbal harassment and menacing notes pushed under her door. On one occasion, she and her partner Sandra were physically beaten and had to seek treatment in hospital.
That all changed in October, when she got a place in Spirit on Lake, an apartment block in Minneapolis marketed to elderly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT/GLBT) people.
"It's more than what I expected it to be. I thought it was just going to be another apartment complex and I was surprised that we've become a community - we know just about everybody by first name," says Kirby, a 58-year-old former teacher and nun who left her convent after falling in love with one of the other sisters. "I just feel blessed."
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26554710
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